New look Biz Chamber targets 'struggling' CBD

THE former Queanbeyan Business Council has a new name, a number of new faces and
a bold new mission, to save the Queanbeyan CBD.

Now called the Queanbeyan
Business Chamber, the revitalised business lobby group has signed up four senior
local business people as vice presidents.

Former councillor and Dimitries
Jewellers manager director Steve Stavreas has accepted the new position of vice
president-retail, local conveyancer Rachel Bevan is now vice
president-Professional services, Skyview Windows owner Neil Thompson is vice
president-Industrial and local accountant, builder and hotelier Steve Bartlett
is vice president-Hospitality and Tourism.

President Jamie Cregan said the
Business Chamber had to refresh and replenish its skill base to help counter a
number of recent business closures and attract shoppers back into the
city.

"We've got businesses struggling and failing across the CBD. We've got
a community that is increasingly shopping elsewhere, and we've got to attract
our locals back to the CBD before we can even contemplate getting people from
across the border," Mr Cregan said.

The Chamber is launching an ambitious
push this year to come up with a design for a comprehensive overhaul of the CBD,
and will seek to reach a broad city vision shared by both professional civic
planners and the wider Queanbeyan community.

Mr Cregan said the Chamber hoped
to "fill in the detail of the (Queabeyan Council CBD) master plan," which he
said was currently too general to allow rapid, sweeping
change.

"Traditionally, Council has driven the change, and we think that we
can get a broader range of ideas where the community is driving the change, and
the results that we get will be ones that the community is seeking," Mr Cregan
said.

"There needs to be an alternative point of view rather than just
Council staff. And that's not a criticism of Council staff- they're working
within the confines that they have. But this is about a much broader ideas
set.

"What we're trying to do with this project is for the community to take
ownership of the CBD, and for the community to be the one driving the change,"
he said.

The Chamber is now building a brief of action to be based on a mix
of professional planning strategies commissioned from independent contractors
and community suggestions.

Mr Stavreas said he joined the Chamber because he
felt it could achieve rapid change in the CBD, stemming the flow of local
shoppers to better designed and presented retail centres across the
border.

He said if the change didn't come soon, the Queanbeyan CBD would
become merely a "convenience centre with a very bad ambience."

"First of all
you've got to look at the competition to us," Mr Stavreas said.

"You've got
the Airport commercial area, you've got Googong and a number of other smaller
areas.

"Instead of focussing the attention on a major civic centre, it will
deteriorate to becoming a convenience centre with a very bad ambience, because
you'll have empty buildings- and no matter what you do to them or how much you
paint them, they're going to be empty-and people will not feel comfortable or
safe, and they will congregate towards the centres in Canberra.

"There will
be tremendous leakage if we don't act, which in turn will have an impact on the
economy, on employment, on Council rates and income generation, land values and
so on," he said.

The Business Chamber met with Queanbeyan Mayor Tim Overall
yesterday to discuss their CBD proposal.